22/11/2017 BBC News at Six

An upbeat Chancellor delivers his

Budget but against the backdrop

of a slowing economy.

Philip Hammond made some

eye-catching give-aways

despite productivity being down

and growth forecasts reduced.

A Britain we can be proud of,

a country fit for the future.

I know we will not build it

overnight, but in this Budget today

we will lay the foundations.

They call this a Budget

fit for the future.

The reality is, this is a Government

no longer fit for office.

Stamp duty for first-time buyers

on properties up to £300,000 will be

scrapped except in Scotland -

experts are warning it

could put house prices up.

We'll bring you all the details

of the Budget and who are

the winners and losers.

Also tonight:

SHOUTING.

Mr Mladic, sit.

Mr Mladic, sit.

Guilty of genocide -

the ex-Bosnian Serb commander behind

Europe's worst single atrocity

since World War II.

CHEERING

MUSIC PLAYS

And the next president of Zimbabwe,

Emmerson Mnangagwa, is back

in the country and will be

sworn in on Friday.

And coming up on Sportsday

on BBC News:

Countdown to midnight -

the Ashes Series gets underway.

England captain Joe Root says

they're ready to go.

Good evening and welcome

to the BBC News At Six.

A Britain fit for the future -

that's what the Chancellor has

promised in today's budget.

It had a few giveaways

but was delivered

against the backdrop of a faltering

economy with lower than expected

growth and falling productivity.

Among Philip Hammond's

announcements: From now,

first-time buyers in England,

Wales and Northern Ireland

will pay no stamp duty

on homes up to £300,000,

more in London.

Scotland has a different system.

For the NHS in England,

the Chancellor promised an extra

£1.6 billion over the next year,

though that's still short

of what the NHS says it needs.

The wait for the welfare benefit

Universal Credit which has attracted

criticism from both sides

of the House has been reduced

from six weeks to five.

But it's all set against a downgrade

in how much the economy is expected

to grow over the next five years,

with growth in 2017 alone

cut from 2% to 1.5%.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said

the Budget would unravel within days

and "misery would continue

for people across the country".

Our political editor

Laura Kuenssberg now

on the facts and figures,

the winners and losers

in today's budget.

Almost ready to go - a big day for

Downing Street. Whose script for

months has been shaky, to say the

least.

Feeling the press,

Chancellor?

The priority for number

ten and number 11, those powerful

next-door neighbours...

Is this a

make or break Budget?

Was voted a

cosmic events not to slip, to keep

the Budget tightly their grasp. --

was for today's events not to slip.

He knew that the own delight -- his

own job would be shaped by what he

had to say. A cheery start than Mr

Hammond's usual demeanour suggest.

I

report today on an economy that

continues to grow, continues to

create more jobs than ever before,

and continues to confound those who

seek to talk it down. In this

Budget, we express our resolve to

look forward not backward.

Yet, with

Brexit hanging over him, the risks

of no deal with the rest of the EU

are real and expensive.

Today, I am

setting aside over the next two

years another £3 billion, and I

stand ready to allocate further sums

if and when needed.

He wasn't

gambling with his ability to get

through the speech. Remember hers?

I

did take the precaution of asking my

right honourable friend to bring a

packet of cough sweets, just in

case.

But he had to reflect the

worry felt by many around the

country, and confessed to the fact

that the economy will be sluggish

for longer, the country overall less

wealthy for years. The first time

there has been this kind of

prediction since 1983.

They revised

down the outlook for productivity

growth, business investment and GDP

growth across the forecast period.

What ministers want you to year is

their promise to spend billions more

to get house-building going, and to

make it cheaper to buy the first

time.

When we say we will revive the

homeowning dream in Britain, we mean

it. We do not underestimate the

scale of the challenge, but today,

we have made a substantial down

payment.

One of the few surprises,

stamp duty will be scrapped for good

for those buying for the past time,

on properties up to the value of

£300,000. But it might only prompt

around 3000 extra buyers come and it

could push prices up. After Tore

concerned joined other parties'

opposition, the Chancellor promised

to smooth the sharp edges of

Universal Credit.

Universal Credit

delivers a welfare system where work

always pays and people are supported

to earn. But I recognise, Mr Deputy

Speaker, the genuine concerns on

both sides of the House about the

operational delivery of this

benefit.

The controversial benefit

won't be posed, but families would

have to wait so long to receive the

payment when they first plane. And

they will be able to stay on housing

benefit for longer. That's not will

not be paused. There was no extra

money for care for the elderly. The

health service in England, though,

will get an extra £2.8 billion in

the next couple of years, far less

than its bosses say it needs. But

the Government will find more money

to give nurses pay rise next year.

With no obvious clangers so far from

the Chancellor, the Government hopes

this can steady Tory nerves.

We are

at a turning point in our history,

and we resolve to look forwards, not

backwards, to seize the

opportunities ahead of us, and

together, to build a Britain fit for

the future. I commend this statement

to the House.

A sigh of relief from

the Chancellor, but obvious anger

from the Labour leader. Not enough

to change much, he claimed, and not

enough for millions in need.

Economic growth has been revised

down, productivity growth has been

revised down, business investment

revised down. People's wages and

living standards revised down. What

sort of strong economy is that? What

sort of fit for the future is that?

They call this a Budget fit for the

future - the reality is, this is a

Government no longer fit for office.

Remember the Government barely has a

majority when it needs it, so

opposition parties can make life

extremely hard.

He is deluded. When

you look at the OBR book, the fiscal

stimulus from this is 0.1%. It is

nothing.

Living standards will be

severely curtailed. We have a severe

squeeze continuing in public

services.

Economic growth

downgraded, this meant investment

and productivity downgraded as a

result of this Budget, meaning a

further squeeze on wages and living

standards.

A squeeze which will hang

over companies and families around

the country, a backdrop that the

Government at Westminster will find

hard to escape. Laura Kuenssberg,

BBC News, Westminster.

The Government's goal of balancing

the Budget is looking

increasingly remote.

The previous Conservative

Chancellor, George Osborne,

had pledged to eliminate the deficit

- the difference between

what the Government earns

and what it spends -

to zero by 2015.

Then it was kicked back to 2025.

Now, even that is in doubt.

The Budget has revealed that

borrowing over the next five

years will, on average,

be higher than previously forecast.

Andy Verity is here to talk us

through the numbers.

Andy:

It wasn't really Philip Hammond

who had the biggest

influence on this Budget.

It was Robert Chote -

the man who makes the official

predictions about how quickly

the economy will grow.

Before the financial crash each

worker would produce about 2% more

than they did the year before.

For years, Mr Chote expected that

growth in productivity

to return, but it didn't.

Now he's been forced to admit it's

not going to happen.

The basic judgment we have to make

about productivity is what weight do

you put on this unusually weak

period that we've seen

since the financial crisis,

and a much stronger period

of performance for

decades before that?

Economists really don't know

what the explanation

for the weak period is.

There's a whole variety of things

that could have been

contributing over time.

Very low interest rates,

weak investment, problems

in the financial sector,

maybe the output of the economy

is being under-measured.

But we basically had to take

an overall judgment,

and we've been more pessimistic

than we were back in March.

Here is the scale of the damage that

weak productivity is expected to do

to the growth of the economy,

meaning all the goods and services

we produce. In the spring, the OBR

thought we would grow by 2% this

year, and then slow down before

speeding back up in five years. Here

is the new, realistic forecasts an

average growth of just 1.4% per

year, a slowdown that won't go away.

Well, I think if the projections

are correct, that would mean that

we'll see a very slight slowdown.

We're growing at about

1.5 to 1.7% now.

The slowdown would be

down to 1.4, 1.3%.

But, quite frankly, that's

within the margin of error

of any economic forecasts,

so I think it's

a sobering projection.

Now, if the economy is growing more

slowly, the income tax and VAT

doesn't rolling as fast, so the

Chancellor has to borrow more to

plug the gap between income and

spending. Here is what he was

forecast to have to borrow back in

March. Now, he won't have to borrow

as much in the short term because

the economy has done better than

expected since the Brexit bug, but

in five years, he will be borrowing

a lot more. In spite of that, the

Chancellor chose to spend more. Take

next year, when he will spend an

extra £1.5 billion preparing for

Brexit. He will miss out on £800

million by freezing fuel duty. It is

a net giveaway of more than £6

billion.

It's looking increasingly unlikely

that we're going to get balanced

books even by the mid-2020s.

The point at which we're supposed

to have got to balance

has been pushed back,

and back, and back.

And actually, just to get

there in the mid-2020s,

we'd have to have another

round of spending cuts

over the early 2020s.

Given how hard it's been to get

where we are, I think that's

going to be pretty tough.

Underlying all the Treasury's

numbers are assumptions - that we'll

leave the EU in March 2019, that

immigration will be cut, that

imports and exports went grow as

fast. And each of those assumptions

is deeply uncertain. Andy Verite,

BBC News.

In terms of the housing crisis,

the Government has pledged to build

an average of 300,000 new homes

a year, but not until the middle

of the next decade.

Stamp duty in England,

Wales and Northern Ireland is to be

abolished immediately for first-time

buyers on properties worth up

to £300,000, more in London.

Our Home editor

Mark Easton has more.

It was billed as a watershed Budget

that would fix the broken housing

market. So, we've come to a new

development in Newbury in West

Berkshire.

Today, we set out an

ambitious plan...

Watching the

Chancellor in a show house, we have

house-hunters in the bedroom, a

worried resident in the kitchen,.

The first measure was the abolition

of stamp duty on houses up to

£300,000

of stamp duty on houses up to

£300,000. The average price here is

£356,000. Has the Chancellor put a

smile on the faces of Charlie and

Sophie who have a baby coming and

need somewhere to start the family?

It looks like the stamp duty will

save us money, but I am worried it

will put house prices further up.

That is the main issue the people

like us. Prices are so high that we

can't afford to save a deposit.

The

offers the Budget responsibility

want a night the stamp duty change

will only lead to an extra

3501st-time buyer purchases. The

Chancellor said today he wants

300,000 new homes built in England

every year. The last time 300,000

homes were built in a year in

England was back in 1969, when

councils and housing associations

built almost half of them. What was

your takeaway from the Budget?

Is

the devil is in the detail. The main

ones are around employment training,

so we have people to build a new

homes, and Universal Credit changes

to support our residents to pay

their rent.

Just up the road is the

other side of the housing story,

appropriately the inspiration for

the book Watership Down, these

fields had been due to become 2000

desperately needed homes, but after

local protests and rows over

infrastructure, the council has

pulled the plans. How do those

worried about new development view

this Budget?

We welcome the

protection of green belt, the

emphasis on Brownfield development,

high-density housing for towns and

cities, but we worry about the

300,000 target as the pressure goes

on councils to push forward

unsuitable schemes.

Is the prime

minister says fixing a broken

housing market is her mission, so in

this rich corner of the Home

Counties, how many children are

homeless tonight? The answer? 87.

More money has been promised

for the health service,

nearly £3 billion over three years

for the NHS in England,

and £350 million immediately

to address pressures this winter.

But NHS England's medical director,

Sir Bruce Keogh, says

the money isn't enough,

and longer waits for

patients seem unavoidable.

Our health editor Hugh Pym has more.

The neonatal intensive care unit

at Birmingham Women's Hospital.

Here, they have a clear view

of what future generations

will need from the NHS.

The chief executive says

the Chancellor's new funding falls

short of what is required.

I feel quite sad about

it, if I'm honest.

I was really looking

for the Government to make

a commitment to what the NHS needs

in the long term.

She told me the money

for this winter has come too late.

It's very difficult to think

what we can do now.

The only thing we could

really try is to get

locum staff or to pay

existing staff overtime,

but it's the same pool

that we are asking to do

extra work all the time.

NHS England had called

for a major fudging increase.

The Budget deal falls short of that.

Health commentators said it was

a step in the right direction.

It's less than we need,

but it's more than we expected.

There are huge challenges

are lie on the front line,

not just for acute hospitals

but also for mental health,

community and ambulance services.

NHS employers say the Government's

pay cap policy has made it

increasingly difficult to recruit

and retain staff.

Significantly, today,

the Chancellor said he would find

the extra money to cover any wage

increase recommended

by the independent pay review body.

These nurses told me

they had something to look

forward to after many years

of pay restraint.

It's massive, financially.

We struggle every month.

Every month, you're

in your overdraft.

There is not very many

nurses have a savings fund

and things like that.

It's very positive, but I just worry

that it still leaves some

uncertainty about what it means

for the future, how much

the pay rise will be.

The trust running this hospital has

got new Budget funding

to expand its A&E unit,

but a senior NHS England official

has said the Chancellor hasn't

plugged all the funding gaps.

Longer waiting times for care

are now unavoidable,

which is worrying.

Hugh Pym, BBC News, Birmingham.

Some of the other measures

announced in today's budget

are that the personal tax-free

allowance will rise to £11,850.

And for higher rate tax payers,

the threshold is lifted to £46,350.

Duty on beer, wine, spirits and most

ciders will be frozen-

but duty on high strength ciders

will go up.

Duty on tobacco will rise

by 2% above inflation.

But car tax for all but the cleanest

diesel cars will go up

a band from April, but no

increase for vans.

And there was good news

for small businesses -

the threshold for small businesses

to pay VAT is being kept at £85,000.

Let's talk to our political editor,

Laura Kuenssberg, at Westminster.

There was so much build up to this

Budget, talk of rows

between Number 10 and 11,

dark mutterings about whether it

might cost the Chancellor his job -

so, has he managed to pull it off?

I think if anybody was hoping for

something dramatic, huge moves in

this Budget, they would have been

disappointed. It wasn't the kind of

radical reboot some Tory MPs wanted.

It wasn't the kind of Budget that

will go down in history as the kind

that could change the fortunes of

the government overnight, whether

being a triumph or disaster. Frankly

after the last six months of

turmoil, the real aim for number 11

and Number 10 today was to get

through the day without accident. A

quiet day these days for the Tory

party is in some ways a good day.

There is, however, a really big

important but to all of that. The

economic predictions are worse, much

worse than people had expected. That

means if they turn out to be

correct, that for another five-year

is families and firms around the

country will be feeling the squeeze.

The country is expected to be

significantly less well off than

previous forecasts suggested. Those

numbers can prove to be wrong. They

often do turn out to be very

different. But, voters tend to

punish governments and political

parties who preside over a period

where they feel they are feeling the

pinch. However the individual

measures that Philip Hammond put

forward today proceed, that backdrop

is something the government can't

escape.

Thank you.

And you can see whether today's

budget means you'll be

better or worse off,

by going to our budget calculator.

Just go to bbc.co.uk/budget

and follow the links.

Let's take a look at

today's other news now.

And the former Bosnian Serb Army

commander Ratko Mladic has been

found guilty of genocide and crimes

against humanity during the Bosnian

war more than 20 years ago.

Amongst a number of charges,

he was judged to have significantly

contributed to the the worst

atrocity in Europe since the second

world war, when 7000 Muslim men

and boys were massacred.

-- 8000.

From The Hague,

Allan Little reports.

Mr Mladic, sit.

It has been the most emotionally

charged of all the trials

this court has heard.

Mr Mladic, if you...

Mladic demanded a halt

to the hearing because of his

high blood pressure.

When the judge refused, Mladic

was led out yelling obscenities.

Curtains down, Mr Mladic will be

removed from the courtroom.

SHOUTING.

In his absence,

the judge carried on.

The crimes committed rank among

the most heinous known to humankind,

and include genocide

and extermination as

a crime against humanity.

Mladic committed genocide

at Srebrenica in 1995.

There, his men rounded up or hunted

down 8000 men and boys,

some as young as 12,

and murdered them.

EXPLOSION.

The sniping and bombardment

of the capital Sarajevo

was designed to terrorise

the civilian population.

A member of the SRK shot

a Bosnian Muslim woman walking

on the street with her children.

He's talking about the woman

in the white coat.

Her name is Djenana Sokolovic.

The bullet passed through her

abdomen and hit her seven-year-old

son in the head, killing him.

Last year I went to see her.

She told me why she'd gone

to The Hague to give evidence.

TRANSLATION:

It meant a lot to me.

I went for the sake of my child.

I know that nothing will bring him

back, but I would go again

tomorrow if they asked me.

I can't tell you how important

it was for me to testify.

Across Bosnia, Mladic's forces drove

hundreds of thousands

of non-Serbs from their homes.

Thousands of men were held

in detention camps,

where hundreds died.

For this, Mladic was convicted

of murder, extermination

and forced deportation.

This is Fikret Alic in 1992.

Today, he welcomed the verdict.

TRANSLATION:

This should send

a signal across the world,

that in future war criminals

will be punished.

There will be justice.

Ratko Mladic was not the architect

of ethnic cleansing,

but he was its ruthless enforcer.

He didn't just fight a war,

he carried out a huge and violent

criminal enterprise.

Allan Little, BBC News, The Hague.

The former vice-president

of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa,

has returned to the country,

two days before he's due to be sworn

in as its new leader.

He's been in South Africa since

he was sacked by Robert Mugabe,

a move which triggered a military

takeover, culminating in Mr Mugabe's

resignation yesterday.

Here's our Africa

Editor, Fergal Keane.

The Crocodile is coming.

All day they waited

for Emmerson Mnangagwa,

he of the legendary ruthlessness,

reinvented now as an

apostle of liberty.

They were the happy and the hopeful.

This MP was cast out

by Robert Mugabe.

Now his faction is triumphant.

The country is pleased.

It's all about the people.

If the people are happy, I'm happy.

We did this for the people.

The people did this.

But there were reminders

of Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa's

more sinister legacy.

This is the air marshal

Perence Shiri, who led the notorious

Fifth Brigade during massacres

in Matabeleland soon

after independence.

How do you feel today,

General Shiri?

I don't know.

Have you anything to say?

Are you happy?

He's a close ally

of the new president.

What is very clear to me

is that this is a welcoming party

not made up of old Zimbabweans

but very much hard-core

ruling party supporters.

They celebrate together,

but the ruling party

is no longer a monolith.

There are factions within factions,

and loyalty to the new leader

will be dependent on him delivering

change.

Now, let me ask you, if this

president doesn't meet your needs,

will you challenge him?

Everyone now is very awake.

If he doesn't do what we want,

we're going to take him down again.

We are not scared.

You're telling me this at the party

headquarters of Zanu-PF,

so that is a real sign of change

for this country.

Yes!

Everyone is now very, very awake.

These are days of questions.

Where are the deposed

Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace?

The military isn't saying.

Will the new leader

bring the opposition

into a unity Government?

One leading activist told me

the international community now had

to engage with Zimbabwe.

Well, we expect the international

community to be our underwriters

and guarantors, to be making sure

that there is the holding

of credible, legitimate,

free and fair elections.

Within the last hour,

he arrived at his party

headquarters, and promised to be

the people's servant.

We want to grow our economy.

Yes!

We want peace in our country.

Yes!

We want jobs, jobs, jobs.

The task is huge and

the expectations are great.

Fergal Keane, BBC News, Harare.

Let's return to our main story this

evening, and the Chancellor has

delivered his budget.

He gave a sobering assessment

of the economy with lower

than expected growth,

but promised more money for the NHS

and help with stamp duty

for first time buyers.

Let's speak to our economics editor

Kamal Ahmed who's in Downing Street.

Are people going to feel worse

or better off after this budget?

I think not much change. Actually

the Chancellor didn't do very much

on personal taxes, so that squeeze

so many people have been suffering

this year will continue. As you

suggest, the big story from the

Budget today was that growth

downgrade. This is the first time a

five-year forecast for growth has

been below 2% since the 1980s. To

cover that issue, the Chancellor

said he's going to borrow a lot

more. It seems the economic and

political pressure he's under, he's

decided to act now. The big question

for the Chancellor is this. If the

economy takes a further turn for the

worst, what of those Brexit

negotiations don't go as positively

as some expect, will the Chancellor

have more money in the kitty, that

header hit carefully saved up to

spend in later years? Would he have

more money to spend? After today's

events, that is the big question the

Treasury will have to answer.

Thank

you.

Time for a look at the weather.

Here's Lucy Martin.

Here's Lucy Martin.

Good evening. Some wet and windy

weather today. This photos sent in

by a Weather Watcher in Cumbria.

Some localised flooding where the

rain was heavy. There have been some

blue skies. The best of the

brightness in the south-east. This

photos sent in by our Weather

Watcher. This is what is going on in

the pressure charts. This area of

low pressure working in drawing

colder air into the north, we will

see some snow in parts of northern

Scotland tomorrow morning. Through

tonight before that will stay windy

across England and Wales. Heavy rain

at times moving east. As the rain

meets the cold air in the North it

will turn to snow, even in lower

levels. Temperatures in the south in

double figures but freezing in the

North. It will be slow tomorrow

morning for Central and northern

parts of Scotland. A cold start the

day as well. As we move through the

morning, the snow will move towards

the east. Behind it seeing some

wintry showers following in and some

wintry showers from Northern

Ireland, southern Scotland, northern

England and if you feeding into

Wales. The best of the dry, bright

weather in the south-east. A breezy

day across England and Wales.

Temperatures in the double figures

in the south-east. Highs of 14

degrees. We are starting to see

temperatures fall from the north.

That's thanks to being in this

colder air mass than we saw at the

beginning of the week. We had milder

air and highs of 17 but by the time

we go into tomorrow we are firmly in

the colder air. Temperatures back

into single figures. A cold start in

the North with a touch of frost.

Wintry showers in the north-west,

largely dry and bright across

England and Wales.

That's all from the BBC News at Six,

so it's goodbye from me,